Through Tusonge, Aginatha Rutazaa Leads Kilimanjaro Women to Prosperity

Tanzania Daily News (Dar es Salaam)

James Lanka

15 June 2011

interview

Empowerment of women at grassroots level is one major step that would drive women out of poverty and enable them overcome social injustices that have for long haunted their wellbeing.

Correspondent James Lanka conducted an interview with Ms Aginatha Rutazaa, Managing Director of Kilimanjaro-based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), Tusonge Community Economic Development (TCED), which is dedicated to improve women’s welfare. Here are the excerpts;

Can you give us a brief background of your organization?

The Tusonge Community Economic Development (TCED) is a non-profit making organization that was established in recognition of challenges facing communities at grassroots level despite enormous resources that are on hand.

Tusonge is a Swahili word meaning “let’s move forward”. We realized that if women in the communities are financially empowered they could solve their problems and improve their living conditions.

Our vision is to improve the capacities of community development groups and the livelihood of individual people. We are also committed to enhance skills of groups and individual members of the community to explore, appreciate and utilize rightly the available resources.

We understand that participatory approaches are the key to unlocking development. Our motto is “We shall bring about sustainable development”.

What is the scope of your activities?

Tusonge-CED creates spaces within which marginalized individuals, women, youth, and communities will be motivated to engage, explore, and appreciate the available local resources more creatively with the focus of undertaking social transformation and improving their livelihood sustainability.

We also offer technical support to community development organizations on how to develop strategic business plans and capacity building on participatory project planning.

These organizations are also supported to build up participatory planning process as well as conducting evaluations to community projects where we also offer support to organizations which need facilitation for organization developments.

Since the establishment of the NGO, a number of trainings on entrepreneurship skills have been conducted to women groups. And given the fact that women are considered to be more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, they have also been educated on the scourge.

Nurturing and developing leadership skills to women entrepreneurs are also among areas which my NGO focuses on. The aim is to build confidence among women to enable them run their businesses effectively.

Can you tell us if the NGO has had any impact on poverty alleviation in Kilimanjaro region?

Women entrepreneurs in the region have been able to increase their working capital and entrepreneurship skills, thanks to loans and entrepreneurship skills training we have been providing.

Among women that have benefited are those from Majengo Ward in Moshi Municipality whom we empowered through the trainings and loans. Our organization has also facilitated women in the region to be more confident and knowledgeable in running their businesses.

This has enabled them to increase their incomes and thus able to contribute to other social aspects such as education and health at family level.

Who are the sponsors of your NGO?

Tusonge-CED is mainly supported by the community members themselves through mobilization. The initial support are from the local people themselves, as they were motivated to realize that they can organize and mobilize themselves to sustain their own livelihood.

After the initial support by members we were also able to get support from partners in German, Bread for the World who has supported us on the capacity building on entrepreneurship skills development.

How has the partner organization interacted with other civil societies?

We are interacting well and we appreciate that for sustainable development to happen various actors must contribute to the process.

What challenges does the project face?

The main challenge that we face is deeply entrenched patriarchal culture. Most women in this region and Tanzania as general do not own properties and this make it hard for them to access credit as they lack collateral.

The other challenge is low income and education levels among the women here. An informal survey conducted at Majengo Ward revealed that most of the target group lives on less than US $1 per day (about 1,500/-). With the low levels of income and education, the target group is exposed to HIV/AIDS.

What is your advice to Tanzanians, particularly women on participating in economic activities?

The current Tanzania Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Policy which is intended to enhance the development of private sector, hardly mention empowering women entrepreneurs and thus it need to be modified to indicate how it would assist women amid constraints they specifically face.

The policy seem to be favouring large capital intensive entrepreneurs which in most cases are owned and managed by individuals with good working capital. There policy should be changed to give room to women entrepreneurs by suggesting how they can be supported.

Tusonge-CED will also take this as a challenge to facilitate the target beneficiaries understand; gain capacity and confidence to positively dispute the policy as it affect them directly.

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